City Mouse, Country Mouse

I was born a city girl - no two ways about it.

While I don't remember my first home in upstate New York, I know that it was an apartment in what had once been a bustling center of industry.

My next home was on a main thoroughfare through Springfield, MA.  There was traffic running through all day and all night.  The neighborhood was a melting pot of different immigrants - Puerto Rican, Greek, Italian.   And once a year, the Shriners parade went right by our house!   It was a city neighborhood and I loved it!

When I was 10, we moved to Missouri and if the shock of being in the Midwest wasn't enough, imagine suddenly being thrust into the suburbs!   My brother Patrick and I had trouble sleeping at night those first few months because it was so quiet in our new neighborhood.  There were trees and a big back yard and park within walking distance that we could go to on our own because there weren't any big streets to cross.

But just 20 minutes away was St. Louis - not as big as New York (which I adored), but big enough to satisfy my need for noise and bustle and big new things. In high school, I was an Explorer Scout in a troop sponsored by Anheuser Busch and got to spend a couple nights a month at the brewery downtown.  I loved going to The Arena for Blues games.  After a slight misfire my first year of college, I went to St.  Louis University right in the heart of the city.  I interned at KMOX.  The city never intimidated me - it exhilarated me!  It had life that the suburbs didn't.

I always intended to live in a city - be it New York when I went through my acting or journalism phases or D.C. when it was politics running my life or even St. Louis, where the Soulard neighborhood called to me.  But then something happened that changed all of that.

I fell in love with a country boy.

And now I'm raising two little country boys in a house across the street from a cornfield (and sometimes cows).

And while I still love the city life and sometimes long for the variety and convenience that living 15 minutes away from everything and anything brings,  there is something to be said for sitting in the yard while the kids play over at the neighbors and type this entry with nothing but the sounds of the birds and an occasional pick up driving by.  Sure, I'm now more familiar with septic systems, water wells, ditch drainage and the assorted wildlife out here - not to mention the weird obsession with sheds (that, let's be honest, are big man caves).  But when the sky is clear at night down here and you look up and can see every star in the sky, it beats any big city fireworks display.

I'll never truly be a country girl - I just don't get the appeal of a pick up truck or overalls - but I certainly don't mind being a transplant.